


Worrying About Cloud

by sanctum_c



Series: Tifa Week 2018 [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Cloud's not so tough emotionally, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene, physical harm or lack thereof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c
Summary: Tifa contemplates Cloud's hardiness.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife
Series: Tifa Week 2018 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984117
Kudos: 12





	Worrying About Cloud

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'Favourite Quote'

Tifa stopped worrying about physical harm coming to Cloud pretty early on in their relationship. Their true relationship, not the vague mutual acquaintanceship they shared as children when he knew who she was, when she was only faintly aware of him: someone else who lived in Nibelheim. Not someone she classified as one of her friends.

She did not stop worrying when she asked him for the promise; he was not the first teenager in the town to ask her to meet them at the water tower before they left for the alleged bright lights of Midgar. But he was the only one who she asked the promise of. A small, but significant difference to the start.

But she never knew Cloud before, barely exchanged ten minutes of conversation as a child. Oh, it transpired they had said a handful of words when he returned in disguise before actually fulfilling his promise against the odds. By sensible reckoning their current relationship began on a dreary day in Midgar, on the platform when she found him insensible.

Cloud could recover fast; astonishingly so at times. How much was a result of mako infusions, and how much was the worrying presence of Jenova was a matter of some debate; of the three SOLDIERs Tifa had encountered none were similar. Two at least had performed feats and movements that seemed to defy reality. Who knew what the third might have done if things had gone differently?

The first action with Cloud on that day in Midgar should have been to get him somewhere warm, clean him up and start working out the puzzling factors. How seven was somehow five, and why Cloud’s eyes now boasted the green glow of a SOLDIER. But he was upright, coherent and desperate to move. He had somewhere to be- Though never once did he articulate where he needed to go. He was going to walk right back out of her life after she stumbled into his; she needed time.

Sending him on the mission with Avalanche was an absurd risk. Little reason to doubt his claims of being an ex-SOLDIER given his eyes, the split-second change from his lolling head to full coherency required explanation: too much risk for such a dangerous mission like the assault on the reactor. But she had no time and no other options. She sent him to catch the train and called Barret, swearing to his skill-set. When asked what he was to her, the best she could manage was a childhood friend. Would Barret have entertained his presence with any other answer?

Nerve-wracking wait for the the team to return. The dimming of the lights and panicked news broadcasts spoke quickly to the success of the mission, but not if he and the others escaped both the blast and the combined might of the Shinra military. But they returned – alive and well. Not the point she stopped worrying for Cloud’s safety though. No, that came in Wall Market. A cunning plan to infiltrate Don Corneo’s mansion, to find out what the disreputable lech knew of Avalanche, made both more complex and so much simpler when the stunning girl in the red dress figured out how to sneak Cloud in with her.

Cloud had survived a fifty metre fall. Aeris was always quick to note how he had gone through both a church roof and landed on her flowerbed – both could have provided sufficient breaks in his plummet to shift the plunge form lethal to merely risky. Tifa remained unconvinced; somehow she was certain had Cloud fallen right from the plate onto the dried, packed mud of Sector Five, he would have bounced right up with nothing worse than some bruising. Cloud was physically robust.

The events that followed confirmed it; while she, Barret and Cloud had executed a panicked swing from Sector Seven into Sector Six and survived with minor injuries, he managed without a bruise. He lead the charge through a plate-glass window on a motorbike as they escaped the Shinra building. And she was willing to bet had Aeris not noticed the crane at the edge of the city, Cloud would have simply stepped off the plate and dropped out of Midgar without a second thought.

Soon it seemed nothing could slow him down. The risk of electrocution in Junon seemed a laughable idea after what Cloud had already been through; Aeris concurred there was little risk to him specifically of clambering onto the Upper Junon supports. On their trek to North Corel he wound up falling through the rail track (thankfully into water) and clambered back up unharmed. Over and over again Cloud bounced off problems and obstacles. Even when the last truths were clear and all was out in the open, it barely merited mention that he not only survived his impaling on the Masamune, he defeated Sephiroth as a result. So maybe it was neither SOLDIER nor Jenova that was responsible for his resilience.

But Cloud was a long way from impervious. Emotionally he was vulnerable, another facet of him revealed over the course of their journey. He put on a brave face, wore his heart on his sleeve and wanted to believe in everyone. Hidden beneath bravado and muddled memories of five years previous was a seventeen year old who wanted desperately to reach out to everyone around him, doubting they would ever respond in kind.

Cloud was unlikely – as far as she knew – to suffer a physical malady. Emotional distress was far more of a risk, especially when the goal that had animated and brought him so far no longer existed. She was with him, and determined to give him the emotional support he needed. No fears when he was off on deliveries of him getting injured in an accident; but feeling he was alone? A message a day was the best she could come up with when he was away from home. It seemed to work.


End file.
